Nine

“ARE YOU going to stop me from testifying?”

Aaron stared down Dr. Thomas as he and Spencer sat together on the couch in the rec room on Saturday morning. He hadn’t had many sessions with the good doctor since Spencer moved downtown because of a few scheduling conflicts, and this one felt empty and hollow. Even though Spencer sat next to him, he didn’t live there anymore. All of the life had been sucked from the room, leaving only an empty shell without the computer and the video games. Even the fish swimming listlessly in the tank looked depressed. Nothing was the same.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

“Do you want me to stop you?”

“Why does every fucking question I ask you have to be turned back on me? Can’t you just answer one? Did they actually teach Deflection 101 at the college you went to?” Aaron asked, unable to stop the rage that exploded inside him. Everything had made him angry since the damn prosecutor showed up in his perfectly pressed suit and generic blue tie and ripped away the safety net Aaron had built over the last five years. Tore it away as if it had never existed, and now he had to start all over again.

“Only if they’re teaching Projection 101 at yours,” Dr. Thomas said calmly. “The answer to your question is, I can, but unless you are completely unable to testify, I don’t think I should. I believe it would be better for you, in the long run, to face your attackers and gain power by their incarceration.”

“Would I?” Aaron asked, more to himself than Dr. Thomas or Spencer, who sat, as ever, by his side, one hand on his leg. Spencer hadn’t left Aaron’s side for most of the day, and he couldn’t decide if it annoyed him or comforted him. Why should he care now? He’d be gone the next day, back to his new job, his new friends, and his new life.

“Wouldn’t you feel safer with them in prison?”

“What if they don’t go to prison? Sometimes that happens. Then I will have put myself out there for nothing.”

“You will make a compelling witness, Aaron.”

“Because of the scars, right? The broken little toy.”

“You. Are. Not. Broken.,” Spencer interjected quietly with a squeeze to his knee.

He was, and deep down in his bones, especially lately, he felt it, like a hole inside him nothing would fill. His relationship with Spencer, his therapy, even his sanity, all were like living on borrowed time. Soon, very soon, he feared, one of them would crack completely, fraying the edges of his life.

“I am, actually.” He put his hand over Spencer’s and held on. At least he’d still have Spencer through the next night, and he’d take it. “Whenever I think about getting up in front of a room of people and telling them what happened to me, I can’t breathe. When I think about being in the same room with them, even after all this time, I want to finish the job they started. It takes every bit of my concentration not to think about it. But if I don’t testify, then they go free.”

“You’ll have to talk about everything that happened that night—the torture, the rapes, Juliette’s murder, and then after about being in the hospital and your recovery. They may call me to testify as well to give the jury a better understanding of how your experience affected your life.”

“It destroyed my life.”

“The only person who can tell them that is you, Aaron.” Dr. Thomas didn’t smile; he simply watched Aaron.

“How do I do that?”

“We will start with desensitizing you to the subject. You talk about it over and over again until you can recite what happened without feeling emotionally connected to it. Once you said that word ‘rape’ you could say it again more easily the next time. Understand?”

The terrible helplessness crept into him again, and he could only nod. Talk about it, describe it over and over until he could do it without feeling? Was that even possible? He couldn’t imagine a world where he could say it aloud over and over until it didn’t bother him anymore. The panic he’d managed to keep packed tightly in the back of his mind surged through him, and he held Spencer’s hand tighter even as he rocked back and forth almost imperceptibly in his seat.

“I can’t do this in front of Spencer. I can’t describe what they did to me with him here. Do we have to start now? Can we start on Tuesday?” Aaron’s panicked heart slammed in his chest. He definitely couldn’t talk about it in front of Spencer. God, it was humiliating enough without having his boyfriend hear it. All the things they said to him, did to him, made him do, he couldn’t stand it. Aaron’s parents had only heard part of it, and he knew what he could see in their eyes. He never ever wanted to see it in Spencer’s eyes.

Contempt.

Pity.

Disgust.

“It. Will. Not. Change. The. Way. I. Feel. About. You., Aaron….” Spencer’s hand moved from his leg up around his shoulders, and Aaron pulled away. He couldn’t stand to be touched right then, not with the memories of that night playing over and over in his head. Goddamn it, he wanted a drink to make them go away.

“It’s not happening,” Aaron said as he stood. Leaving Spencer and Dr. Thomas to watch, he left the rec room and headed for the kitchen. It took a minute for Spencer to follow, long enough for him to grab the little bottle of Jack from the counter and pour some of it into a clean glass from the cabinet.

“That. Does. Not. Solve. Anything….”

“How the fuck would you know?” Aaron asked, not turning so that Spencer couldn’t read his lips. He didn’t want to hurt Spencer but couldn’t stop the words from coming. The booze or sometimes the drugs were the only things that could stop the ripping pain of broken glass inside his head when the memories came. Just like the cold concrete beneath him or the monster on top of him. They would never go away, no matter how much Dr. Thomas thought he could desensitize him. It had been almost five years. Wouldn’t he be over it by now if that were ever going to happen?

He kicked back the Jack and poured another. After years of not drinking, the alcohol made a fiery path through his esophagus and into his empty stomach. He coughed, unable to stop the spasm in his throat. Aaron heard the refrigerator door slam closed, and Spencer thrust a cold can of Coke into his shaking hands. It took two tries for him to pop the top, but eventually he let the icy carbonated sugar settle his scratching throat.

“Better.?” Spencer asked and rubbed his back in light circles. He moved again, still uncomfortable with the touch.

“I should get home. My mom was with my grandmother most of the day, so she’ll probably need help with dinner.”

“I thought you were going to stay for the weekend?” Spencer signed, and Aaron couldn’t keep looking at his wounded expression. He had to get away. Every time Spencer touched him, it just reminded him of why he didn’t like to be touched. Like the last three years hadn’t happened and he was back to that boy who freaked out every time someone came in contact with him. He hated that guy, but sometimes it was just easier.

“Spencer, I need some time,” Aaron said, not adding the “away from you” that got stuck somewhere between his brain and his hands. Spencer, who knew him better than anyone, read between the lines and figured it out anyway. He backed up, taking himself out of Aaron’s personal space, and after a moment Aaron found that he could breathe again.

“I do not want this to come between us, Aaron.”

“A lot of things seem to be coming between us.”

“What does that mean?”

“Look, I need to go.”

“Will you come back and stay tomorrow night before I have to go back?”

“I will try.”

“Sure you will.”

“I will see you at the cookout.”

It took an effort, but Aaron kissed Spencer’s cheek before he walked to the front door and grabbed his shoes. Spencer didn’t follow, and Aaron couldn’t really blame him. They’d had a really nice weekend planned for Spencer’s four days at his father’s house, and Aaron had ruined it. He’d ruined it because he couldn’t cope when that prosecutor showed up and shattered the illusion that his rapists had been abducted by aliens, or disappeared from the planet, or maybe just got deported to some third-world country somewhere. Instead they were being held in a cell within driving distance of Aaron’s home. One break in security and they could come for him. They could send friends for him. They could finish the job they started five years ago.

He finished tying his other shoe and looked back over his shoulder. Neither Dr. Thomas nor Spencer came to see him off.

Later that night, as he sat propped up against the headboard, half ignoring the laptop sitting on his legs, Aaron tried to piece together the fragmented thoughts racing through his head. He’d already tried to erase the guilt of leaving Spencer on one of his only weekends back in the suburbs, but he couldn’t erase from his mind the disgusted look on Spencer’s sweet face if he knew the whole truth about his attack. Finally, he just started reading. Dr. Thomas told him to use different techniques to distract himself from what happened inside his head if it got to be too much. But he had problems concentrating on the book. His mind wandered from the stark white electronic pages of his Kindle app and back to the dark place inside that garage. The place Spencer never ever needed to go.

Ding

The sound startled Aaron because he hadn’t expected Spencer to want to chat with him. He was even more surprised to flip over to the chat window and see that it wasn’t Spencer.

[MissingTwin] I hope you don’t mind that I added you to chat.

Aaron had been exchanging comments and private messages with the mysterious MissingTwin through the PTSD site for the past week. They’d talked about a variety of different generic subjects from music to books to the classes he was taking in college. They seemed to have a lot of common interests, including the big elephant in the room, the reason they both surfed a PTSD support group. Neither Twin nor Aaron had brought up the trauma that caused them to seek out other damaged people.

[Aaron] No, man, that’s fine.

[MissingTwin] What are you up to?

[Aaron] Trying to forget my life. You?

[MissingTwin] I’ve had days like that. I was trying to watch a movie but just couldn’t get into it.

[Aaron] Yeah, you keep losing your place because your mind wanders.

[MissingTwin] Yeah. So, why do you want to forget your life?

[Aaron] Bad day. Ever had an epic meltdown?

[MissingTwin] Yep. Some days I can’t even get out of bed.

[Aaron] Yep.

[MissingTwin] Wanna talk about it?

[Aaron] Nope.

[MissingTwin] Fair enough.

[Aaron] What movie were you trying to get into?

[MissingTwin] Lord of the Rings. I like action, but I’m not fond of guns.

[Aaron] I totally get that. I’m not fond of knives.

[MissingTwin] I’m Jordan, by the way.

[Aaron] Aaron. Can I ask why your chat name is “MissingTwin”? You don’t have to tell me.

[MissingTwin] I lost my twin brother Dylan in a school shooting when I was in 10th grade.

[Aaron] Jesus.

[MissingTwin] Yeah. Your turn.

[Aaron] My best friend Juliette was murdered when I was in 11th.

[MissingTwin] Did you see it?

[Aaron] Yeah. You?

[MissingTwin] Yeah.

[Aaron] How long ago?

[MissingTwin] Five years ago last April. You?

[Aaron] It will be five years in October.

[MissingTwin] Year five isn’t any easier than year four.

[Aaron] Nope.

[MissingTwin] So, what happened to cause your epic meltdown? Flashback? Trigger?

[Aaron] They caught the guys who did it.

[MissingTwin] That’s supposed to be good, isn’t it?

[Aaron] Did you have to testify? Describe what you saw? What you felt? In detail?

[MissingTwin] Shit.

[Aaron] Yeah.

[MissingTwin] Hey, do you have Lord of the Rings?

[Aaron] Yeah, why?

[MissingTwin] Pop it in and start it. We can watch together, maybe fight off a few demons.

[Aaron] Seriously? And what, run a play by play? You could be on Mars for all I know.

[MissingTwin] Not quite. But yeah, that’s what I mean. I have a couple other friends that I watch with. We like to put up quotes on chat and follow them up with “in my pants.”

[Aaron] How old did you say you were?

[MissingTwin] 20.

[Aaron] Uh-huh.

[MissingTwin] For example, you remember the part where Galadriel and Frodo were at that basin thing and saw the future?

[Aaron] I’m afraid to ask.

[MissingTwin] I know what it is you saw, for it is also… in my pants.

He couldn’t help it, the snort exploded from him, and he laughed longer and harder than he had in a long time. It took him a minute to be able to respond, but he agreed and asked Jordan to hang on for a minute. He climbed off the bed with more energy than he’d had that day and went down to the family room where they kept the movies. He grabbed the extended version of the Fellowship of the Ring and stopped in the kitchen just long enough to pop microwave popcorn and get a Coke from the refrigerator. He got back up to his room just in time to see the message come in from Jordan.

[MissingTwin] Okay, I’ve got popcorn and Grape Crush, the best movie watching combination since Siskel and Ebert!

[Aaron] LOL I have popcorn and pop too. The credits just started.

[MissingTwin] Sweet. Let’s do it.